Discussion

BBQ Tour ideas

I am interested in planning a BBQ tour of the southern states for my husband that I can fit into 1 week. A road trip would be great. Does anyone have any route ideas and restaurant stops? I would be starting and ending in Chicago.

Really depends on whether you want South or Southeast. While it's certainly possible to do Texas and the Carolinas in a week, it wouldn't be a pleasant week. Consider Memphis/Texas/Kansas City.

Alton Brown did his Feasting on Asphalt series some years back where he started at the Mississippi Delta and headed North as well as East Coast-West Coast trip. While not strictly BBQ, it was a decent concept. There's a list of places visited here (no guarantee they're still open):

Aha! Now I see the purpose of the question - you're not sure where to go.

Just to give you an idea of how many miles you would be driving on ferret's itineraries (which support his/her point of skipping the Southeast)...

2900 miles Chicago-Dallas-Raleigh-Chicago2000 miles Chicago-Memphis-Dallas-Kansas City-Chicago

You might even consider not going all that far south. You could still get some terrific barbecue, and not drive as far, by skipping Texas and going:

1500 miles Chicago-Memphis-Kansas City-St. Louis-Chicago

If you hit St. Louis, don't miss Bogart's and Pappy's. In Kansas City, the places to go are Jack Stack and Oklahoma Joe's. Again, you can find specific recommendations on the boards for whichever locations you decide to visit.

Thanks! I am thinking starting out with the Austin BBQ belt for 1 trip, then another trip to KC and Memphis, then NCarolina. I don't want it to be all driving. I have the same question posted on all those locations.

If you head south on I-57 out of Chicago, you can hit Uncle John's in the far south suburb of Richton Park. Open Tuesday-Saturday at noon.http://unclejohnsbarbque.comA few hours farther south in Marion, Illinois, is a branch of Mike Mills's 17th Street Barbecue.http://www.17thstreetbarbecue.comThat will get you within striking distance of Memphis.

Just a quick note that the original poster has cross-posted this question to a number of boards, since their question crosses a lot of different boards. You can see all the threads in their profile ( http://www.chow.com/profile/1478522 )

We're not even going to try to keep the discussion strictly regimented so that only things in a region covered by a board can be discussed on each thread, but if people want to focus discussions of specific places on the thread on the appropriate regional board, they are out there so you can choose to do that.